?In Much Ado About Nothing, deception is used both to destroy relationships and unite lovers. How is deception used in this play, and what is the impact? In Much Ado About Nothing, the main themes of the play, is deception and love. The main aim and theme of this play was to unite lovers and destroy relationships. It gives us perfect examples of fairy tale endings, and Elizabethan requirements. It shows us how religion and belief can dictate whether you get married or not, this is all down to the era that they were in.

We are able to question what the true meaning of love is these days, without having to think about our status, and whether we are pure or not. In Claudio and Hero’s case, having their relationship destroyed by Don Pedro, was a key part in the play. Don Pedro used deception to trick Claudio into thinking Hero was having an affair, and was not a virgin. This was such a big deal, because when a woman gets married, she has to be a virgin. Deception drew these two lovers apart, and left Hero confused.

Hero’s father Leonarto said ‘Death is the fairest cover for her shame that may be wished for’. This idea then made Hero use deception on Claudio, by pretending to be dead. By doing this, it made Claudio realise his love for Hero, and that in fact she wasn’t having an affair. However, using this deception, made them reunite as lovers. In the Elizabethan era, everything dictated whether you can be married or not. Your status was also a highly important factor, if you were looked down on within society, you would lose your status, and you would have a hard time trying to find a husband.

You also had to be a virgin, because otherwise you would have been seen as not pure, and nobody would want to be with, but nobody cared about whether the man was a virgin or not. This is why, when Claudio thought Hero was cheating on him, he instantly refused her, and left her broken hearted, because in fact she had not been cheating. Also, if you were to get a divorce, you would have been looked upon as an unfit wife, that is why divorces were so rare.

Deception, status, honour and tricks are such important parts of the play, that if they weren’t included, we wouldn’t have a play. If the characters had not played tricks on Benedick and Beatrice, they would have kept their love hate relationship, and not fallen in love. However, when Don John told Claudio that Hero had been cheating on him, he was instantly tricked into believing it, because it is such an important thing in those days. Also, this when the destroying of their relationship starts. Also status, was a very important ssue in the play, because when everyone heard that Hero was supposedly cheating and she fainted to the ground, this is what Leonato, Hero’s father, said to her: ‘Do not live Hero do not ope thine eyes, for did I think thou wouldst not quickly die, thought I thy spirit were stronger thy shame, myself would, on the rearward of reproaches, strike at thy life’. This showed how much Leonato cared about his status rather than his own family, and also, that even though Hero was his daughter, he wanted her to die to save the shame that he and the rest of his family would get if she was to stay alive.

However, he was soon to realise that she was in fact innocent, and that somebody had in fact made it up and tricked him, so then the family done the same thing back, by tricking everyone into thinking that Hero was dead, so that they would confess the truth, that in fact it was a trick that had been played on her. During the play, we also see how two haters unite to become lovers. Benedick and Beatrice had a kind of love hate relationship; they would be at each other’s throats all the time and just generally disliking each other. They made the audience laugh with their spiteful insults towards each other.

Benedick was tricked into loving Beatrice, when Leonarto, Don Pedro and Claudio were purposely talking about how much Beatrice loves Benedick. At this point, Benedick was very self-deceptive, and gullible to anything the three men were saying. This made him very swoony whenever Beatrice was around, because he thought that she was hopelessly in love with him. But earlier on, he had said that he will die a bachelor and never get married, but all of a sudden, he had changed his perception of marriage, and in fact wanted to marry Beatrice. Unknown he was being tricked, he still allowed himself to believe it.

In the next scene, Beatrice was the next one to be tricked. The three boys from the previous scene had planned for Beatrice’s maid and cousin (Hero) to try and gets Beatrice to overhear them talking about how much Benedick likes her. She also became self-deceptive, and instantly fell in love with him after several years of hating him; along with insulting him numerous times at the masked ball. She too vowed that she would never get married till she dies. She was tricked into loving him, she didn’t realise that in fact he too hated her before he was tricked.

In conclusion, I think that Much Ado About Nothing was a story of uniting and destroying lovers. It shows how we can be haters one minute and then turn to in fact love someone. People were self-deceptive, rude and sometimes clueless to the current situations. They all had their own unique styles and showed how they were able to overcome their differences. I thought this play was very inspirational, because you were able to see how they solved their differences, and also how you can find out who your true friends really are.

Author: Brandon Johnson

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